The Reaction Trap: Are We Trading Substance for Dull Simplicity?
How poems die to market data points.
11/5/2024
It seems like a socially expected chore to “react” to messages—like, if I don’t “react” with a “love” icon to a message that conditionally expects the love icon, the sender feels one hasn’t “fulfilled” the reply appropriately—it is now the norm to “react” with established symbols—words are not enough anymore!
I’ve noticed how these “Reactions” in most social media & messaging services actually degrade digital communication—they limit genuine dialogue into quick and effective messaging (“why waste time writing what’s on your soul and mind when you can simply choose a reaction!”).
I don’t like to romanticize the past, since we’ve never lived a clean, good society, but I do remember how digital dialogue was more sincere, open and unique—people used to play with letters and words to express themselves in special and specific ways, creating what’s called a culture.
Nowdays, the only culture we have now is that imposed particularly by Facebook and the weapon of massive stupidification called “Like”, which evolved into “Reactions Culture”—it seems every human reaction is condensed in a default set of symbols, which are the same for everyone, and are the same ones that the establishment has decided to be the most “important”. In fact, we should philosophize what does it means when something is “by default”, but that’s another topic for another day.
Despite having used them as a way of “enriching” my digital communication with others in the past, now I think they actually reduce my will for real conversation, since we tend to limit our dialogue to mere symbols, believing they effectively “respond” with what we actually feel, when human emotions and real reactions are vast and diverse, written in this case.
This issue reminded me of the book written by Guy Debord called The Society of the Spectacle in 1967—it is downright prophetic! One of its main theses is that we are now mediated by images, spectacles that reinforce the status quo with its own garbage and illusions, the ideals of Capitalism. So, it is no rurspire that we feel “united” when the media, the spectacle has created a world of its own, ceberating itself, based on what suits the market: Easy to track data points.
People “unconsciously” tend to choose what the majority of the herd has, therefore making “Reaction Symbols” an unreliable metric for what people actually feel, but, since they are adoctrinated to forcefully react to something now, they will do it, even if they don’t feel like it: I like this, I love this, I hate this, etc… Data engineers should be proud of how they’ve managed to manipulate human behavior!
Harsh truth: When you use social media, you are actually a Data Slut.
Silicon Valley is destroying our beautiful language in favor of unemotional, lifeless neo-liberal communication—all for the sake of business metrics, data tracking, number crunching, and maximizing profits. So, what could we do? One of the most revolutionary things you can do today is to stop playing by the rules of these technocrats. Alas, I’m not saying they are futile—technology, and nothing actually, is inherently “good” or “evil”—there are many alternatives for digital communication, but monopolistic strategies (like the insidious “free internet by Facebook in African countries”) make people believe they are as natural as the Sun and Moon. I recommend people to stop doing whatever these services tell them and simply emphasize genuine, sincere dialogue, without the absolutely unnecessary, energy-wasting act of “reacting” to something.
Perhaps the most radical act in our digital age isn’t screaming into the void of social media—it’s choosing to remain silent when the algorithm begs for your reaction. Every time you write a thoughtful message instead of clicking a pre-packaged emotion, you’re committing a small act of rebellion. In a world drowning in hollow symbols, your words—raw, imperfect, and genuinely yours—are the last standing fortress of human authenticity. Let’s reclaim our language, one unfiltered conversation at a time.